Safe From Battle
by Lynyrd Lionheart
Summary: A collection of one shots that take place within canon for The 100.3: Post S2 finale. Clarke knows she can't go back.
1. Safe From Battle

**AN: So, yeah, another 100 fic! Yay, right?**

**Safe From Battle**

_I was weak. It's worth the risk._

Clarke thinks she could live a hundred years, and never regret anything more than she will those words.

After making the call to blow up the Grounders to save the 100, she had understood leadership. After driving a knife into Finn's heart for peace, she had understood sacrifice.

After saying those words to Bellamy, after saving the 47 from Mount Weather and setting loose the Grounders but not seeing him among their number, she knows she will understand regret.

It's Monty, shaking and wide-eyed, but so very strong, that gives her the news.

"He was in the cages with us. Then they took him… Clarke, I don't know where they took him."

And Clarke feels her stomach fall. As others celebrate around her, Sky People and Grounders alike, she feels like her world has come crushing down around her. Her eyes meet Octavia's across the celebration. Lincoln is murmuring to her, his grip on her clearly the only thing keeping her from running off, and Clarke knows that she knows. She tears herself from Lincoln's grip, and storms towards Clarke, who stiffens her spin and prepares for the worst, because Octavia is fire and passion and Bellamy is the only family she has left.

"We have to get him back," Octavia states, and Clarke's clenched muscles immediately loosen, because that wasn't what she was expecting to hear at all. She had expected threats and shouts of _this is your fault_, but instead there's just ice in her voice and fire in her eyes, and Clarke knows that it doesn't matter what she says next. Octavia _will_ save her brother, or she'll die trying.

_I was weak. It's worth the risk._

She feels the same determination, because _she_ was the one that decided it was worth it. _She_ was the one that sent Bellamy straight into the arms of the enemy. And _she_ is the leader, so maybe it's time to stop risking everyone else and risk herself.

"Absolutely not," Abby declares when Clarke stands in front of her and Lexa and declares her intent to go get Bellamy back. Octavia is at her side, holding a knife and bouncing on the balls of her feet, eager to get her brother back, impatient with the hoops Clarke has to jump through before they can leave.

"This isn't your call to make, m-" Clarke cuts the word off before it can fall off her tongue. They cannot be mother and daughter right now, not when Abby is calling Clarke's authority into question. They have to be leaders, equals, and Clarke won't let Abby make her appear lesser in front of Lexa, who has been completely silent since joining them. "It's mine. Saving Bellamy isn't just something I want to do, it's something I _have_ to do."

"Because you care for him," Lexa says, and it's a comment, though Clarke can hear hints of a question in it. She knows this is Lexa's way of questioning her decision – is she making it because it's the choice that needs to be made, or because her love is making her weak?

"No," Clarke replies shortly, staring Lexa down, and she finds that she truly means what she says. That anything she may or may not feel for Bellamy (and she refuses to touch that, to look at it too closely – it's too soon, Finn's death still too fresh) does not affect this decision. She is doing what needs to be done. "Bellamy is important. My people, they _listen_ to what I say, but they'll _follow_ Bellamy anywhere."

Lexa stares her down, and neither backs away, until finally the Grounder leader bows her head, just the slightest. She understands, that obedience is important in a leader, but every leader needs a General, and that General can't just be obeyed. They need to be _loved_.

Bellamy is Clarke's General, and she _will_ get him back.

"I'm coming with you," Monty says, waiting for them outside the tent. He's too thin, and there are exhausted, haunted shadows in his eyes. One of the doctors hovers nearby, and it's clear that he's refused to go with them, that he's refused to let them treat him. "Bellamy got us out of there. I'm coming with you."

Octavia immediately argues, and Clarke listens to those arguments with one ear as she watches Monty closely – so closely. They could use someone that knows the inside of Mount Weather well, and while Clarke was there, Monty had far longer to explore and learn. But her gaze lands on his hand, clenched into a fist and shaking, and she knows that if they took Monty, he would never make it out again.

_I was weak. It's worth the risk._

Clarke takes a deep breath, tries to push away the emotions that swirl inside her like a tempest. She's made this call before – _Bellamy is missing because she's made this call before_ – and she tries to ignore that thought, to block out emotion and look at this as she imagines Lexa would.

_Lexa who had lost her love, and killed her General for peace, because she was cold and never let emotion get in the way._

"No," Clarke says at last, and she still can't be certain that this is a choice made for the right reasons, not sentimental ones… but there's a difference between calculated risks and suicide, and with the way Monty shakes, the way his bones are just a little too sharp in his features, she knows his presence would equate to the latter. "You have to recover, Monty."

Her gaze tracks over the others, Grounders and Sky People alike, that were kept in Mount Weather. Jasper stands not too far away, looking thin himself, but better than Monty, and next to him stands the girl he refused to leave behind. Clarke remembers her, though she can't remember her name. Just that she threatened to shoot Clarke when she tried to escape, and she can feel her smile become sharper, almost animalistic when her gaze lands and locks on the girl, who stares back, then takes a frightened step behind Jasper, as though he could somehow protect her from the blonde that's looking at her as though she's prey.

"Her," Clarke says nodding at her, because who better to lead them into the belly of the enemy than the enemy herself? She sees Jasper open his mouth, and perhaps he thinks to argue, but Clarke looks at him with fierce eyes – _it had been for him that Bellamy had been caught, because Jasper refused to leave the girl behind_ – and whatever he sees in her expression silences any arguments he might have made. When Octavia grabs the girl – _Maya? Yes, that's her name. Maya_ – by the arm and pulls her over to Clarke, Jasper's jaw clenches, but he remains silent. Clarke looks at Maya. "You'll get us in, get us to Bellamy."

"They won't let me in any more than they would you. I'm a traitor now."

"Then I suggest you start thinking about alternative ways, Maya. And think fast."

T100

They've decimated Mount Weather's numbers. She knows this, both because she was there fighting, and because Maya has told them so. But they didn't get rid of them all, and those that remain have locked themselves in the veritable fortress of the mountain.

But there are other ways. Ways that mean risking Reapers and horrible death, but when Clarke looks at her people, sees how disheartened they are by Bellamy's loss, she knows that it has to be done. Mount Weather is still a threat, and who knows how long this truce with the Grounders will persist. When – and Clarke assumes it's _when_ not _if_, because peace is a tenuous thing she hasn't truly known since landing on earth – everything falls apart, they will need Bellamy. She can give the orders, be the rational head of their people, but she needs Bellamy to be their heart.

She needs Bellamy to be _her_ heart, because Clarke feels lost and rung out, and she's not sure she can be passionate about anything anymore. Not the way her people need her to be.

So she sets off with Octavia and Maya. Lincoln will stay behind, because he was injured getting the forty-seven out, but Lexa is sending half a dozen of her Grounder warriors to have their back. To Clarke's surprise, Marcus Kane also steps up, and it helps to know that while her mother still looks at her and sees a child, Kane has realized that the 100 have grown up out of necessity, that they know better than any other Sky People what needs to be done to survive. She'll trust him to have their back, and to get everyone he can back to camp alive, should Clarke herself not be able to do so.

"You might be better to send someone else," Lexa tells her as she hands her a knife, a show of respect for what Clarke is doing.

"Delegation is what got us here," Clarke replies, and then wishes she could bit her tongue, because those works sound too much like regret, and regret is a weakness she can't show this commander. "I can't ask my people to do something I'm not willing to do as well."

"I know. I wish you luck, Clarke of the Sky People."

And then she steps away and Clarke and the others set off. Clarke clutches the knife until her knuckles turn white, but otherwise her expression is serene, showing none of the desperation she can feel welling inside.

The past week has been difficult without Bellamy, and now that she faces a future of leading without him there, without his supportive strength… Clarke isn't sure when she had come to rely on him. But she does know that she needs him back.

T100

The Grounders and Kane get them to the tunnels to Mount Weather, but once there it's left to the three girls to get inside, to get Bellamy out.

It's a testament to how badly their numbers were cut by the battle, that it's so easy to break into the sanctum. And once in, Clarke finds it eerie how silent the halls are. When she had been there, the place had been alive, both with soldiers and with civilians, and now their footsteps echo in the halls, and uncomfortable staccato that is echoed in her ears by her racing heartbeat.

They are so close, they just need to find him.

"Where would they keep him?" Octavia demands of Maya, and the other girl shrugs helplessly.

"You destroyed the Grounder holding cells… the next best guess would be the labs."

The words make Clarke's heart freeze while Octavia lets out an angered, hiss of _what_, because they both remember Lincoln, both know that what was done to him happened in those labs.

_Reaper_.

Clarke's feet begin to move quicker, and Octavia is right there beside her. She hears Maya let out a frustrated huff before she's there as well, facing them and forcing them to stop.

"Do you remember where the labs are that well?" she demands of Clarke, who is forced to clench her jaw, because no, she can't. And Bellamy had the map, so when Maya gives a smirk that makes Clarke want to scream, she instead reaches out to Octavia and holds the girl back from punching that smirk right off Maya's face.

"Move," Clarke says coldly, and that _does_ wipe the smirk away, and sends the girl scurrying off, Clarke and Octavia right behind her.

It's when they finally reach the lab that they finally find people. When the guards see them, the immediately jump into action, but Octavia is quicker and far more brutal than they could ever hope to be, and with two bullets both guards drop. Octavia strides past them, not even bothering to look at the men she's killed, and pulls on the doors.

They're locked.

"They need a passca…"

Maya trails off when Clark grabs one of the dead soldiers and pulls his passcard off his corpse, ignoring the blood that stains her hands as she does so. She has enough metaphorical blood on her hands that a little bit of the literal stuff doesn't bother her. All she cares about is getting through those doors, finding Bellamy.

The President is within, standing with a woman in a lab coat and a younger man who bears a passing resemblance to the President dressed in dark black. They're gathered around something on a gurney, and when they hear the doors open, they all whirl. The man in black lifts a gun, but the President puts a hand on it, forces it back down.

"Clarke," he greets, and Clarke says nothing. She has nothing to say to this man, this man that would have used her people as blood bags to save his own ass. His jaw clenches, but he says nothing more to her, instead turning his gaze to Maya. "Welcome back, Maya."

"I'm not here to stay," Maya replies, and Clarke can hear her voice give a little as she speaks, but her spin remains straight, and the for the first time Clarke can maybe understand why Jasper was so infatuated with her. There's more strength to Maya than Clarke had given her credit for. "We're here for one of their people. Then we're leaving."

"You really think we'll let you leave here alive?" the man in black asks. "After what you did to us? To our people?"

"You started a war," Clarke replies shortly. "If you didn't want to be destroyed, then you should have finished it when you had the chance. You have one of ours. Tall, dark haired, her brother" – Clarke jerks her head at Octavia – "You give him back to us, or I let her have her way with you. She's gone native with the Grounders. You won't like what her way is."

Octavia gives them a not so nice smile, but Clarke can tell that her description amused the other girl, that she actually kind of likes the idea of having _gone native_, of being feared for that. And there is fear there, in the eyes of the scientist woman, and the man in black. The President, though, just looks at Octavia for a moment with those eerie eyes of his, then looks to Clarke again.

"We don't have any of your people anymore, Clarke," he says, and Octavia stiffens, amusement gone, but it's Clarke that raises her gun and trains it on the President. The man in black raises his as well, but Octavia already has him in her sights, and he freezes, knowing he won't win this gun fight, not when it's two against one, and the two will be far quicker to pull the trigger, far more used to it. The man in black has the look of a politician to Clarke. She imagines that he's ordered many deaths. The fact that he's here tells her he probably played a big part in the experimentation that Mount Weather did.

But there's a difference between ordering death and committing it yourself, and Clarke has done both.

"He's telling the truth," the scientist said, her voice very nearly desperate. "We don't have any left… we got rid of them. They weren't far enough along, and we didn't have time to finish, so we got rid of them."

It's the wrong thing to say, and how the woman could have thought otherwise.

Clarke meets the President's gaze and sees the truth in his eyes, that the woman speaks honestly, that anyone that may have been left in the lab is gone, killed off so they could flee or rebuild, or whatever it is that they would do next. She stares at him, not wanting to believe, not able to deny.

_Iwasweakit'sworthrisk. Iwasweakit'sworththerisk._

Her own words echo in her mind and she can hear a heart wrenching shriek. At first she thinks it's Octavia, but then she realizes that no, it's her. It's her, because Bellamy was her General, Bellamy could inspire the masses. Bellamy inspired _her_.

And he's gone.

_Gonegonegonegone_.

She's barely even aware that she's moved until she's pulled the trigger and a bullet tears through the President's head. The man in black raises his gun, but again Octavia is quicker, and he falls as well. The scientist screams, covered in the blood of her leader, but Clarke ignores her. She's aware of Octavia going up to her, and then there's silence, but Clarke doesn't care if the woman is dead or alive. The three were gathered around a gurney, and the white of the sheet is splattered with the President's blood, but it covers a body.

Clarke reaches out with a shaking hand and strokes the sheet. But she finds that she can't do it, she can't pull that back. She meets Octavia's gaze across the sheet, and Clarke can see the same pain in her eyes, the same inability to do this, to find out.

It's Maya, who grasps the sheet and pulls it away.

"It's not him," Octavia whispers, when they see the Grounder man. "It's not him… but then…"

"The tunnels," Clarke replies, closing her eyes and grasping the corner of the gurney in a painful grip. She remembers running with Anya, remembers the carts of bodies, bodies that were left like gifts for the Reapers, and it's worse, really. Because if this had been Bellamy, then at least they would have a body. But if he's there, gone…

Oh God, it's so much worse.

"Where will everyone else be?" Clarke asks Maya.

"They'll be in the civilians quarters… Clarke, these were the leaders. Everyone else is innocent-"

"I don't care," she replies coldly, and it will occur to her later that Octavia isn't the only one that's gone native. That her mentality now is more that of a Grounder than a survivor of the Ark. "Blood will have blood. You can come back with us to decide how we'll get that blood, or you can stay here and die with the rest."

She turns her back on the gurney and nearly steps on the President. She stares down at his corpse and feels such _anger_ rush through her. She wants to kick him, wants to hurt him –

"Help me lift him," she says to Octavia, a plan suddenly forming. Maya protests, but Octavia grasps his legs, as Clarke takes his upper body, and they carry him out.

She would leave him to rot, but he doesn't deserve even that.

T100

_He's better dressed than the others._

It's a distant thought, like most of his thoughts besides _hunger_ and _more_. The Reaper helps to heft the body of the man, to take him back to his fires. He pauses for a moment, because there's something there – a scent, or maybe just an imprint. Something that speaks to him of home, of family.

A flash of gold, of dark, of blue eyes, then he's being shoved, reminded that they need to eat, and the Reaper forgets about thoughts of home and family and blue eyes.

It's just _hunger_ and _more_.

**AN: Yay, right? Sorry, I started writing this, and then it wouldn't stop, and originally it was supposed to end on a happier note, but then I started listening to this 8tracks playlist, and yeah. This happened.**


	2. A thousand words

**AN: I saw a prompt on Tumblr for a fic where Clarke draws Bellamy and then accidentally sends the picture with him in the map to Mount Weather. So I wrote it. This is not connected to **_**Safe From Battle**_**, but I decided I wanted to collect all my canon-ish one shots in one place as I am my college AUs, and this seemed like the best place to do so.**

**A thousand words**

It had just been a rough sketch, started when the stress of Finn and worry over the 47 in Mount Weather became too much. She'd needed to do something, _anything_, with her hands, and he had been sitting there, speaking with Octavia. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had drawn the outline of his face, had begun to detail his eyes.

Clarke… well, she hated to leave anything undone, and so she'd found herself adding to it whenever she had a spare moment. She'd struggled over the shape of his lips, but she'd found adding the careful detail of his freckles had been enjoyable.

And then the Grounders had made their demands for Finn, and Clarke had tucked the picture away and forgotten about it. Until now, when she was tearing her blankets apart looking for it, because she had been _strong_. She had pushed aside weakness and sent Bellamy away for the good of all, but damn if the guilt of that didn't threaten to rise up and choke her. So she needed to see his face, and the only way she could do that is if she _found the damn picture_.

_I was weak. It's worth the risk._

Clarke froze, her hands coming up to cover her mouth, because her stomach roiled and threatened to expel the little she had managed to eat since this whole mess had begun. God, she had sent him away thinking she was willing to risk his life.

God, _she was willing to risk his life_. And knowing that made her hurt, but it would be better if she could just find the damn picture, explain herself to his face, if not the actual him.

_Where had she had it last?_

She had been working on it. She could remember that. She had been watching him… had he been talking to Kane? Maybe Raven? But there had been a spark in his eye, a spark that was distinctly Bellamy, and she had been determined to bring that spark to life in her drawing. But then Murphy had come, and of course she wasn't going to let _Murphy_ of all people see what she was doing. So she had… she had…

She had shoved it into her other papers.

Her other papers had been the map of Mount Weather.

The map of Mount Weather that was now miles away. With Bellamy.

She felt her legs give out and she landed on her sleeping bag. She stared at the top of her makeshift tent and then, against her will, she began to laugh. She laughed until the laughter became tears, and then she cried, because she now she didn't even have a picture of him to help keep her strong.

It had been sent away – just like she had sent _him_ away.

T100

They had stopped to camp for the night, because Lincoln said they should be well rested for what came next, and though everything in Bellamy screamed to keep going, he couldn't deny the other man's wisdom.

The only problem was, he couldn't sleep.

Lincoln lay across the fire, and if he wasn't already out, then he was doing a good impression of it. So Bellamy figured he'd take first watch and spend the time figuring out what to do once he got into Mount Weather.

_It's worth the risk._

He blinked and tried to push the words out of his mind, to push Clarke's expression as she said them out of his mind. Clarke was determined to save their people, and she was a smart girl. It only made sense that she would eventually see the logic in his words.

Didn't stop it from cutting him when she did, though.

He sighed and pulled out the map. He had looked at it a hundred times before with Clarke, of course. She had a real talent, and it showed in the incredibly detailed map she had developed of the inner workings of Mount Weather. He unfolded the paper, only for another one to tumble out. He stared at it for a moment, lying on the ground, and then he scrambled for it.

Maybe this was a note from Clarke. Maybe there was more to it, than just _it's worth the risk_. Maybe she had learned something and –

He stared at the paper, not quite comprehending what he was seeing.

Clarke had a real talent. The detail she could put onto paper was amazing. Tiny little things, like the freckles across his nose. She even drew a little scar he had on his chin, one he forgot he had half the time.

Bellamy looked at the drawing, undeniably in Clarke's hand, because her style was unmistakable – and stared at his own face. He stared, because he couldn't quite believe it. Clarke was talented, but Bellamy knew something like this took time. So when had she –

He thought back, remembering feeling her gaze on him. Whenever he had looked, she had been staring down at her paper, working tirelessly on what he had assumed to be the map… but looking at that, he saw that not much had changed since that first time he saw it. A few added details, some things switched around, but it was mostly the same. And that meant…

That meant that he _had_ felt her gaze on him. That she had been watching him. Watching him and drawing him. He held the paper in his fingers and traced his own features, and he realized that _this_ was how Clarke Griffin saw him.

He had a tiny smirk, and he had no idea how he got that kind of detail into his eyes. There was… there was a challenge there, a glint in his eyes, the slightest of arches in his brow. Bellamy knew Clarke cared about him, that she even needed him in some ways. It had been a lot of trial and error, but they had fallen into positions of leadership over their people, and Bellamy knew that neither of them could have kept as many alive as they had without the other.

But he'd always assumed that outside of that, he was a bit of a non-entity to Clarke. Clarke who looked at Finn like he hung the moon, and who was so determined to keep everyone alive that she wouldn't even truly give the boy she loved the time of day. And it would have made sense to Bellamy, if he had opened this paper and found Finn's face, because that _would_ be the closest thing to longing that the Princess would allow herself.

What he didn't understand, was why it was _his_ face there instead.

_I was weak._

Whenever he thought of Clarke's words he always focused on the last part – _It's worth the risk_ – when it was the first three words that held far more meaning.

She thought that loving Finn had made her weak. Bellamy stared at the picture, and cursed himself for an idiot. Hadn't he been thinking, how much he could identify with Gustus, who would do anything for his Commander, even if it meant disobeying her?

Why hadn't it occurred to him, that Clarke could probably identify with Lexa?

Lexa, who wore a stoic expression and showed no weakness, even though killing Gustus must have killed a piece of her?

Lexa had killed Gustus to give her people their best chance.

Clarke had sent Bellamy away to give their people _theirs_.

His grip on the picture tightened, began to crumple it, and he immediately loosened his hold, not wanting to damage what must have taken most of Clarke's rare moments of peace. He smoothed out the edges, and before he really knew what was happening, he realized that his smirk mirrored the one that Clarke had drawn on his features.

He had left the camp understanding why Clarke had sent him away, but feeling hurt that she had been so capable of risking his life, so soon after saying she couldn't lose him, too.

Well, Princess could deny her weaknesses all she wanted, but Bellamy was going to survive this. He was going to survive this and save their people, and then he would make it back to her and return the picture.

And he would let her know that he wasn't going to be just a weakness for her to ignore.

**AN: And there we go. I have a lot of love for T100 these days, and I'm really enjoying writing for it.**


	3. May We Meet Again

**AN: I think I could live for a hundred years and never get over the last Bellarke scene in that finale. So I wrote this (very) short Clark POV ficlet of it. Be warned: Spoilers for **_**Blood Must Have Blood**_** Pt 2 follow.**

**May We Meet Again**

For a second, she nearly does it. When he asks, voice as small as she's ever heard it, for her to go inside the camp, she almost does. Because he tells her that _they_ did it, that _they_ pulled the lever, and for that brief moment she lets herself imagine that he's right. That she could walk by him, re-enter that camp, and be the same person she was… _before_.

But she can't. Because _they_ might have pulled the lever, but it was her idea. It was her that let the missile hit TonDC. It was her that trusted Lexa. It was her that put a knife through Finn to cement an alliance that ended up falling apart anyway.

It was all her, and she can't go back. Not now.

"I'll bear the burden so they don't have to," she says to him, an echo of Dante's words. And the look on his face breaks her heart, because she doesn't _want_ this. She doesn't want to walk away, to leave them all.

To leave _him_.

But to step past him, to go back to that camp… it means looking Monty in the eye, and knowing that while he may not have pulled the lever, he is the one that made it possible, and it was all because she told him to. It means seeing Jasper, broken hearted and shattered, Maya's body buried but not her memory. That will haunt him for weeks and months to come.

It means looking Octavia in the eye and admitting that she was right, that Clarke's best wasn't enough, and she had to do it again. Had to kill yet more people.

Blood doesn't just coat her hands, it coats her whole damn body, soaking into her pores, her very _being_, and Clarke can't walk through that gate and go back to who she was before. She looks over Bellamy's shoulder, sees Raven cuddled into Wick, and Miller holding onto his dad, and she thinks that she wouldn't go back, even if she could. Not if going back meant none of _them _made it back.

But that doesn't mean she can join them.

She meets Bellamy's gaze again, something shattered in his expression that breaks something in her in turn. But she knows Bellamy. She knows what he'll do for those people she'll be leaving behind. He'll make the choices, the _right_ choices, and while her mom may be right, that there are no good guys, Bellamy Blake is as close to being good as any of them will come.

He'll take care of them.

She steps up to him and presses her lips to his cheek. She closes her eyes and holds them there, perhaps for a beat longer than she should, but his skin is warm and firm and it allows her to inhale, so she'll be able to remember the scent of him when she's gone. She pulls back and wraps her arms around his shoulders, hugging him and feels his arms come up to hold her in return. She revels there for a moment, allowing her that second to imagine that this isn't good-bye, that they'll separate and enter the camp together.

"May we meet again," she says to him, the words falling easily from her lips, but they're empty. The dream of walking with him to camp is gone, and all that's left is the cold truth that she can't do it anymore. She's lost so much of herself… and she just can't. Not this time. She doesn't know where her path will lead, just that it will be far from the people of the Ark.

Their eyes meet for another split second, pain bright and harsh and tangible between them. Then Clarke steels her spin and turns away, her eyes focused on the horizon, determinedly not looking back. Because if she looks back, then she'll go back. And she can't go back again.

"May we meet again," she hears behind her, his voice a low murmur carried away on the wind.

**AN: Kudos to the writers, I never guessed that Clarke was going to leave. But everything about this scene? Beautiful, heartbreaking and damn near perfect.**


End file.
